


Amaranthus caudatus

by Squeeful



Category: The Professionals
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-08
Updated: 2010-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-05 23:55:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squeeful/pseuds/Squeeful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of the shooting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Amaranthus caudatus

First he bled milk, white as shock; then he bled pain, red as anything.

As he lay there bleeding, Doyle heard the tape click off and expected his heart to go with it. When it didn't, and he lay gasping like a stranded fish, he cursed the pity of the girl that she couldn't kill him properly.

Time stretched and stretched until it stood still while Bodie's face hung over him like a will-o-wisp. Then it snapped and consciousness came and went like jumbled photographs in a slide projector. Bodie was there and then he wasn't; he was on the trolley and then back on the floor of his flat. He could se the ambulance's flashing lights and Bodie mouthing words, but he could hear nothing but the sound of his own harsh breathing. Long draw in, short rasp out. In-out. In-out.

\---

Being lucid in hospital was worse than the limbo of his dreams. Every day was the same, from the ebb and flow of misery and morphine to the clockwork turn-over of the nurses. Cowley visited in the mornings with stiff formality and Bodie came when he could before dinner, bringing magazines and his own restlessness. When Bodie found the pile of magazines untouched they had a one-sided row with Bodie yelling about how he needed to want to live and Doyle lying there until he gestured that it was too soon for him to sit up.

Bodie read them aloud, stumbling over unfamiliar technical terms with poor but determined grace.

\---

Lub-dub. Lub-dub.

It was the thumping in his ear that woke Doyle, a fact that would have annoyed him to no end if it weren't the emphatic throb of Bodie's heart. Such a vital sound. He lay still and counted beats until Bodie woke.

"I'm here."


End file.
